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Have I ever cared this much what someone thought of what I’ve written?
When I can’t take the tension anymore, I blurt, “It's just a first draft. We can go in a different direction if—”
He holds up a hand in the universal “stop” motion, eyes still on the words in front of him.
I shut my mouth and go back to cleaning an already spotless kitchen.
I’m two seconds away from going into the living room and fluffing all the pillows when Luke straightens, closes the laptop, and looks up at me. His eyes are dark with emotion. “I can’t believe you wrote this.”
My stomach plummets.
Suddenly I wish I was dressed in more than just his bathrobe. “Like I said, it’s just a draft. But if you let me know the parts that you have an issue with, I can fix them—”
He crosses the kitchen and kisses me. It’s fierce and tender at the same time, and I’m so relieved that he’s not mad I find myself clinging to him.
“The way you see me, Hazel...” His voice is gruff and low. “I don’t deserve it.”
I reach up to touch his cheek. “I just wrote down the stuff you said, Luke. I didn’t make anything up.”
He shakes his head, stubborn. “No. You did something to it. The way you put all my stories together, you made me look...”
I raise my eyebrows, waiting. I tried my best to capture his strength, leadership, and passion. The sharp, irreverent sense of humor that lurks under all that masculine beauty. The way he cares so much about taking care of the people who work for him.
“Good,” Luke says, at last, not quite able to meet my eyes. “You made me look like a good man.”
Something in my chest cracks open.
“That’s because you are,” I say firmly. “I mean, you cover it up with a thick layer ofcynical asshole.But that’s just camouflage, isn’t it? Because you don’t trust people to see the real you?”
He doesn’t answer. At least not with words.
Instead, he wraps me in a giant bear-hug, hiding his face against my neck while he struggles to get control of his emotions. I stroke his hair, marveling that this time, I’m the one givingLukea safe place to hide from the world.
For a while we just hold each other.
And somehow, it seems more intimate than anything we did last night.
When he pulls away, he’s looking at me so intently, with so much heat in his gaze, that I find myself getting flustered.
I tug at the neckline of my bathrobe, pulling it closed for modesty. “Don’t you need to get to work?”
He peels my hand away from the bathrobe and kisses it. It should be a chaste, romantic gesture, but something about the way he does it feels downright carnal.
“I think,” Luke says, “That it would be unrealistic if a groom came back to the office immediately after his wedding.”
He tugs at the tie around my waist, until the knot comes undone and the bathrobe falls open, exposing me to him. Then he kneels in front of me, placing a kiss against my stomach.
Ironically,thatkiss feels chaste.
My heart is tripping over itself. I don’t know what to do with this tender, more open side of Luke.
“I should stay home from the office today, so they don’t get suspicious,” Luke mutters against my skin. “Don’t you agree?”
“We wouldn’t want anyone to get suspicious,” I agree breathlessly, my hand tracing the planes of his face.
After that, we don’t say anything at all.
I think we’re both afraid of what would come out if we did.
